Always said:
I don't understand why models are being so criticised.
Modelling is just like any other career choice, you use your greatest strengths to do something that is the most suitable and will generate the highest income. For models, their strength just happens to be their looks and if that's going to give them a steady income, then there's nothing wrong with it. You do what you do best.
Many models are from south-east/east europe; countries where a good proportion of the population still live in poverty. Most girls are poor and uneducated, and have no real career prospects. They are not intelligent, they were not given the chance to be. If modelling is a means of escaping the poverty trap, not to mention all the other acts of violence against women in their country, then I can only see it as a positive thing. For these girls, modelling is not a mundane existence. At least it is an existence.
It's not the models themselves whom I have issues with, but more so the fact that they are put upon a pedestal and hero-worshipped simply for being beautiful. I think it's a telling sign of where we, as a society, are heading when a gawky, emaciated teenager earns several times the amount of money that someone like a teacher does.
There is also something highly perverted and sick about the way in which models are becoming increasingly younger, and are being sexualised and, in my opinion, exploited. Why are there 14/15/16 year old girls modelling women's clothes and posing for editorials in positions that simulate sex? I find that somewhat disturbing.
Gah. I could go on forever about this. Basically I think that the fashion industry, along with the way in which people treat and view models, projects a lot of negative ideas onto society and is counter-productive in regard to many things (e.g. feminist ideals, body acceptance, reinforcing positive role models for young women, etc etc.)
But good on the models for making themselves some money or whatever.